


The world knows it's changing

by natlet



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natlet/pseuds/natlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tig fucking loves mushrooms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The world knows it's changing

**Author's Note:**

> Contains drug use and offensive language of assorted types.
> 
> Title and quote from [Writ on the Steps of Puerto Rican Harlem](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175643) by Gregory Corso.

*

_Because I want to know the meaning of everything_

*

 

They're already on day four of what was only supposed to be a three-day ride, down near the border with a couple of Unser's trucks, when they find out SAMTAZ is patching in their latest round of prospects. Tig just wants to go home - he still don't know why they're down here in the first place, far as he knows there ain't a huge amount of risk in shipping TVs or cell phones or fucking batteries or whatever Unser's running, least not the kind of risk he needs a goddamn MC to protect him from - but they put it to a vote, and most of the guys want to stay, so they're staying. Tig can be okay with that - he doesn't really have anything against showing the charter some support, and Armando and his guys have a direct line to some of the sweetest Mexican pussy Tig's ever had the pleasure of experiencing, besides.

This time around, they also have mushrooms. It takes Tig a long time to force himself to turn them down when a sweetbutt waves the open baggie under his nose; he shakes his head, tosses her some excuse about maybe there's gonna be trouble, and escapes to the bar. He wants to trip so fucking bad, and for a minute he wonders how much cash he's got on him, if she'll sell him some to take home. But Clay would probably fucking skin him for it, and he owes Colleen three months of child support besides, so he finds an almost-fresh bottle of whiskey instead, settles in with it, and spends a while trying to convince himself that mushrooms are bullshit anyway. He feels like shit the whole next day, spends most of it sleeping and the rest of it miserable. They're not worth it.

"What's wrong?" Clay says.

His cigar smoke gives him away from halfway down the bar, but Tig tries to look kinda surprised to see him anyway. Clay's got this way of sneaking up on him sometimes that's - "Nothing, man."

Clay drags an ashtray over, puts his cigar down before snagging Tig's bottle. "Now, you know I know that's bullshit."

"Nah, it's just - they got mushrooms, and - I didn't take any," he adds quick when Clay frowns. "Not while we're on a ride like this, we're headed back tomorrow, and - what?"

Clay's laughing. He holds out his other hand, shows Tig the palmful of shriveled mushroom caps he'd been hiding. "You can ride back in the van tomorrow," he says.

Tig shakes his head. "I can't," he says. "If we get hit down here, and I'm - "

"I got two whole charters looking out for me, Tiggy. It's all right, you earned it."

"Thanks, man," he says, "thanks," and he washes the mushrooms down with a swallow of whiskey. They're warm from Clay's hand, and they taste like the shit they're grown in, gritty and dark, and Tig makes a face, pushes the shot glass aside and just tips back the bottle. 

Clay laughs, claps him on the shoulder, wanders off. Tig tracks down the prospect and makes him roll a joint, and then another. He hates this fucking clubhouse. It's dark and half the furniture's busted and it stinks like stale beer and pussy, and every time he's here he feels like he can't get clean for a week after. They've got this huge fucking mural on the wall, brother on a bike and a Reaper and the desert stretching out around him. Tig stares at it, watches as the road winds back and forth across the surface of the wall, blood dripping from the end of the Reaper's scythe. He can feel his skin starting to crawl, that sharp shivery too-aware feeling that means the mushrooms are starting to kick in, and he wants, he wants, he _wants -_ he doesn't want the joint any more, and he bats away the prospect's hand the next time he tries to pass it. "Uh, okay?" the prospect says, but Tig ignores him, slides off the couch and goes in search of - he doesn't know.

Too many people, the clubhouse dense and unfamiliar and hard to navigate, and he comes close to knocking over a chair or two as he makes his way - wherever. He doesn't want to be here any more, he wants to be - _shit,_ he thinks, _shit,_ because this is about to go bad on him, and -

"What's wrong, Tiggy?"

Clay's the only thing in the whole goddamn room that's in focus, and the world breathes, _tell him._

"I'm tripping, man," Tig says. "I wanna go outside."

Clay waves his cigar toward the door, the smoke stretching and mutating into impossible twisting trails, weaving a thickening screen between them. "Go for it," he says.

"Come with me," Tig says. "Please."

"Look, pal," Clay says. "I got better things to do than babysit you on your little frolic through Wonderland."

He needs Clay to go with him, needs it as bad as he needs to go in the first place, and the world wants him to say that too, promises him Clay will understand - but Tig ain't that far gone, not yet. He's gonna lose Clay someday, he knows that - he's known that for a while, and it's probably just the light and the fucking mushrooms playing tricks on him, but he can barely see Clay at all now, and he knows, he does, he just hadn't expected it to be tonight.

"You're such an asshole," he says instead. Clay's laughter follows him as he pushes away from the bar and makes his way toward the door - only when he gets to where it should be, the door ain't there. Tig stares at the wall for a minute before he remembers - _Tucson, right_ \- and the clubhouse he'd whipped up in his mind melts away obligingly, the one he's actually in taking its place, door right back where it should be, over in the corner. Tig grins, starts off toward it. He's fine - he's great. Everything's gonna be fine.

The door opens easily under his hands, swinging wide on its hinges. Tig steps outside, and - shit. He'd forgot the clubhouse opens out to a working goddamn truck stop. He knows he probably looks like a fucking idiot, standing there with his mouth hanging open, but he can't help it. This is bullshit. This isn't what he wants - this isn't what he wants at all. The trucks are way too fucking big, to start, their headlights leaving huge broad swirls of light across the lot, weaving a net around Tig faster than he can escape it. The blacktop is hard under his feet, the smell of gas and overheated brakes heavy in the air, the trucks hissing and screaming, and shit, this is bad, this is going to go bad quick if he don't get a handle on things.

Tig fumbles with his cut, finds his lighter and his cigarettes, manages to get one lit but drops the rest of the pack. Half of the smokes slide out and he watches as they scatter across the pavement, rolling and shifting and stretching in front of his eyes. One of them comes to rest on the painted divider, and as Tig watches the cigarette sort of melts away, sinking into the white. He's pretty sure it shouldn't have done that. He wonders if he made it happen; if he did, maybe he can make it happen again, maybe he can make other shit happen too. Maybe he can make the trucks disappear. Maybe he can make the whole fucking truck stop disappear, conjure up something better, some trees and shit, something he can recognize, and - fuck, where the fuck is he, anyway?

The cigarettes on the ground bend into perfect little question marks, skittering away from his hands when he tries to pick them up. They're scared, is all; they're scared, and he sits down on the blacktop, puts his hands out and waits for them to come back to him. Wills them to come back, because shit, it might work, and after a while it does; he gathers them up slow, gets them tucked back into their box, lights one - he could've sworn he'd just did that, but whatever. The pavement under him is cold and dark and he thinks it might also be liquid, he thinks he might be sinking into it - he's sure he is, and he stretches out on his back, quick, spreads his arms and legs and tries to take up as much space as he can.

There's no stars in the sky.

No - they must be there, they can't just be gone, they - he closes his eyes and thinks hard, tries to imagine the sky outside his place in Charming, knows he can't see all that many stars there, either. And there's all these fucking lights here, the trucks and the highway and the goddamn glowing canopy over the gas pumps, but still, he should be able to see one or two, and there's just nothing there but black, there's -

Tig shuts his eyes again, hard, takes a deep breath. _I'm tripping,_ he reminds himself. _I ate a lot of fucking mushrooms, and I'm tripping my balls off, and in the morning everything's gonna be right where it oughta be again._ But he's never seen the stars disappear before, and Clay's not on his left, and this doesn't really feel like tripping should, and he isn't sure about anything, any more. Maybe he's gonna die; maybe this is it, everything's catching up to him, this is his night and the Reaper on the wall inside's just been waiting for him to realize it, waiting for him to slow down enough for it to catch up.

The door squeaks open.

"Jesus _fucking_ Christ," Tig spits. He flips himself over, scrabbles across the blacktop on his hands and knees, fast as he can away from the door and the tattered black robes and that empty-eyed grin and he's not ready, he's not _ready_ yet, and -

"Hey, there you are."

Tig stops. Turns himself around, slow.

It's not the Reaper.

It's Clay, and behind him a million refracted Clays, lined up one behind another, stretching as far back as Tig can see, and he's not sure if that's better than the Reaper, or worse. He's afraid to turn around, afraid the Clays will be behind him, too - afraid they won't. "Tigger," the Clays say. "The fuck you doing sitting on the ground?"

Tig shakes his head. "I dunno, man," he says.

The Clays laugh and hold out their hands. "Come on," they say. "Let's go somewhere else."

He wonders which Clay he's supposed to listen to - which one's the one who didn't have time for him, which one's the real one, if any of them are any more. Tig tucks his head down against his knees. "Fuck off, man," he says, and he doesn't look up toward the soft whispers of air moving around his head, doesn't look up toward the warmth that eases along his side.

"Not a chance, brother."

His voice comes from close enough that Tig does look up, can't stop himself. Clay - there's only one of him now, thank fuck - is crouched down on the pavement next to Tig, gnawing on the end of his cigar, and shit, _shit,_ Tig always feels like such an idiot when he's tripping. "Thought you had somewhere else to be," he says, even though the words taste sour in his mouth, even though he doesn't give a shit now, it doesn't matter.

Clay just laughs, takes a last puff on his cigar, grinds the butt out against the ground. "Armando is an asshole," he says, "and his prospects are fuckin' worthless. He's lucky I don't shut this little shitfest down."

"I'm sorry," Tig says. "I'm sorry. I'm - I'm tripping really fucking hard."

"I know, pal. It's okay." Clay stands himself upright. "You really wanna hang around in the parking lot, or what?"

"No," Tig says, and this time when Clay holds out his hand Tig takes it, lets Clay pull him to his feet. It's the drugs making this so simple - it's gotta be.

They head away from the lights, their shadows carving twin dark furrows into the ground. There's grass out here, kinda - at least, it's dirt instead of pavement - and when Tig lies down he can feel the earth under him, and the stars are back in the sky. "Oh," he says. "Oh, hey."

Clay laughs and the sound wraps around Tig, rippling across his body, forming swirling eddies around his legs. "Better?" Clay says.

"Yeah." Tig watches as the stars reach out toward each other, forming a network of glittering rivers across the sky. "Thanks, man."

The flick of a lighter is followed by the thick, warm, scent of Clay's cigar. "Glad we ain't got that shit in Charming," Clay says.

Tig frowns. "What?"

Clay shoves gently at Tig's shoulder and Tig shifts obligingly, rolling onto his side. "That shit," Clay says.

The truck stop looms up like some weird alien spacecraft, all metal and neon and bright lights, shrieking brakes still echoing faintly in Tig's ears. It doesn't belong, obviously and clearly and aggressively, and Tig always thought that Clay maybe takes the no big business in Charming thing a little far - he's sick of hearing the prospect bitch about Starbucks, for one - but right now, for once, he kinda gets it.

"Yeah," he says. "Me too." Sure, it sucks that he can't get a cheeseburger after midnight unless he wants to ride halfway to Lodi, and sometimes he feels like he might as well just sign his paycheck over to the Oswald boys or goddamned Unser and be done with it - but Lumpy down at the diner makes the best goddamn pancakes Tig's ever had, and the prospect's gonna get over Starbucks, anyway, and at least when Tig steps out his back door at night, he can still see the stars.

Clay still has his hand on Tig's shoulder, the touch spreading a patch of warmth across Tig's skin, a slowly growing outline of Clay's palm that Tig half thinks he might as well get inked, he can feel it so clearly - and he's tripping his fucking face off, he knows he is, but the idea feels so good he can't help a smile. He wants it, wants to wear the evidence of Clay's pull over him on his skin. He's got the Reapers, but they don't cover it, not quite - because yeah it's the club that binds him to Clay, but that's not all, there's more than that, even if Tig goes around most of the time acting like there ain't.

The earth's welling up in front of Tig, cracking and peeling like it's going to show him, and he closes his eyes - he doesn't know what'll happen if he looks at it straight on, but he sure as shit knows it's important he don't look. "I love you, Clay," he says, because that's okay, he says that shit all the time, that's not the important part. That might be enough.

Clay laughs. "I know, Tiggy. I love you too, brother."

"No, I mean, I - " There's a weight in his throat when he looks at Clay sometimes, this thing that sucks the air out of his lungs and won't ever let him forget he'd jump in front of a bike or a bullet or anything if he thought it might keep Clay safe, and it ain't the sergeant's patch and it ain't the club and he's tried a lot of names for it but he hasn't found one that sticks, yet, and -

And in the clubhouse, the Reaper peels itself from the wall; Tig watches it sweep across the backs of his eyelids toward him, the stars blinking off the blade of its scythe, and he's not sure if it's coming for him or for Clay, but the thing is, it don't matter - he's going either way. "Clay," he says, only just managing to force it out, and - and the Reaper flickers away. Not tonight.

"You're okay, pal," Clay says, somewhere behind him, and there's no reason for Tig to believe him, but he believes him anyway. "You're okay."

*

He's not sure how long he stays there. Time's kinda bullshit, anyway. At some point, he gets warm, like he's got the sun on him, but he thinks it's still dark - it's probably still dark - it doesn't matter. He's wrapped up warm and tight and solid, and it smells like Clay, he thinks it must be Clay, but he also thinks it might be the earth itself because he's never felt so goddamn safe in his life.

Tig keeps his eyes closed, and doesn't try to find out.

*

There were mushrooms, and now they're in the van, and there must have been some shit in between - there must have been some _serious_ shit in between, because Clay's leading the convoy from the driver's seat of the van, his bike strapped in the back - but Tig's brain hurts way too much to try and figure out what any of it might have been right now. He clings to the seat belt, keeps his eyes closed until he feels the steady, even thrum of the highway under them, then he slides down to sit on the floor of the van, between the seats.

"You all right, man?"

"Yeah," Tig says, "I'm fine," and he tips his head against Clay's leg. Clay drops a hand down, his big warm palm curving around Tig's skull, his fingers rubbing lightly at Tig's hair, and Tig stays there, lets Clay hold him down, all the way home.


End file.
